


Open windows

by RavenXavier



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Falling In Love, Fluff without Plot, Light Pining, M/M, Mentions of Stalking, Season 2, that feeling when for the first time in your life you realize maybe you're important to someone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25878100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenXavier/pseuds/RavenXavier
Summary: “I’m not sure this is… appropriate,” he muttered stiffly.“And stalking me is?” Martin retorted with raised eyebrows.Jon, to Martin’s utter wonder, flushed bright red. “I wasn’t —” he began and then scowled. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not — I realize what this looks like. I’ll just leave.”A peek into Jon and Martin's relationship in the middle of season 2.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 37
Kudos: 373





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**Author's Note:**

  * For [grantairefarouche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grantairefarouche/gifts).



> The feeling when you want so hard to write nice smut for your best friend's birthday and you end up writing stammering canon darlings in love, and not even when they're ready to kiss. 
> 
> Still, I had fun writing this, and I hope you enjoy it as well, darling. HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Sorry it's not sexy. 
> 
> Thanks to HermaeusMora for beta-reading, as ever, at the last minute <3.

“Was wondering when my time would come,” Martin tried, with a cheerful tone that rang false even to his own ears.

Jon, huddled in his jacket, predictably didn’t laugh; possibly because there was nothing funny about Martin finding him sitting on the bench right in front of Martin’s building at almost 9 pm when Jon lived on the near opposite side of town. _Martin_ shouldn’t have tried to joke about it at all, probably. He should be freaking out, or calling the cops or — at the very least be angry. _I thought we’d settled this,_ he wanted to say. _I thought you realized I’d never hurt you._

“...You might as well come in, you know,” he said out loud. “I promise I’m not going to murder you.”

Jon flinched, before finally staring up at Martin. 

“Sounds like something a murderer would say,” he said with a hoarse voice. 

Martin opened his mouth; closed it. How the hell was he supposed to answer that?

“Jon —”

“Sorry,” Jon muttered, “Sorry I was — that was — a joke. A very. Bad one.” 

He seemed to shrink even further into himself, arms closed around himself defensively. Martin’s heart stuttered treacherously. 

Moments like these it was easy to forget how many boundaries Jon was breaking nowadays; there was something so fragile and nervous about him that made Martin want nothing more than to gently carry him somewhere safe and promise him he’d never be hurt again. He supposed Tim and Sasha couldn’t quite understand this, which was fair, because they hadn’t been on the other side of it all. The terror that followed you wherever you went, the certainty that nobody cared about what you were feeling (that nobody would care at all, if something actually happened, that you were the only one who could protect yourself, even if you looked mad from the outside —). 

Martin remembered how his hands had trembled, for weeks, as he held a mirror and checked for the third time of the hour if a worm had dug into his skin without him noticing. He also remembered, clear as day, Jon agreeing for the third time in a row to check his back, and squeezing his arm and saying calmly _We’ve done everything we could, Martin. We’ll be fine. Just go to bed. It’s late._

“Come inside, Jon,” he repeated, more firmly now. “You’re freezing.”

Realizing that if he used his voice in a certain way, he could make Jon actually listen to him had been quite the revelation. He still wasn't sure when or how to use this odd, magical super-power, and tried not to be too greedy with it. Still, his mouth went a little dry when Jon immediately straightened and got up, seemingly unconsciously, before wavering on his feet, frowning.

“I’m not sure this is… appropriate,” he muttered stiffly. 

“And stalking me is?” Martin retorted with raised eyebrows.

Jon, to Martin’s utter wonder, flushed bright red. “I _wasn’t_ _—_ ” he began and then scowled. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not — I _realize_ what this looks like. I’ll just leave.”

He stayed right where he was though, casting nervous glances around. Martin licked his lips. Admittedly, if Jon had wanted to spy on him, he’d been doing an incredibly bad job at it. Not that he’d been that good with Tim, apparently, what with forgetting to hide the pictures, and the way Tim had spotted him from his window several times, but at the very least he’d _tried_ to be discreet. This — this wasn’t subtle _at all._

“Fine,” he said. “Then why are you here? I doubt you’d come to _me_ if there was anything terrible happening at the Institute, so…?”

Jon blinked slowly. “Who else would I go to?” he asked, and Martin promptly lost all his words, flushing helplessly. 

“What? I mean, I — uh — I — what?”

“You’ve proved yourself more than competent in times of crisis,” Jon muttered. “And I know better than to ask _Elias_ to actually _do_ anything. And Tim and Sasha are — well. I doubt they’d be too keen on helping me, these days. With… reason, I suppose.”

_What about friends?_ Martin wanted to push. _What about family?_ Except he already knew the answer; Jon’s loneliness might not look anything like Martin’s, but Martin could still recognize it, his own shameful, needy ache for companionship straining towards Jon at every instant. He couldn’t remember when he’d first felt it, but nowadays it was a constant hum at the back of his mind. _We have nobody, and we could have each other. It could be us instead of me._

“ _Is_ there a crisis?” he managed to ask, eventually.

“...No,” Jon answered quietly. “I just… I didn’t want to stay at the Institute longer than I had to.”

_You have a flat,_ Martin didn’t say. Something too warm that felt like poetry was growing in his belly, and he carefully nudged Jon’s arm. “Come on. I bet you haven’t eaten.”

“Martin, we ate together a few hours ago.”

“No, we ate together at _lunch._ How are you still standing?”

“You seem to be doing just fine yourself.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly your size —”

Bantering was easy, and familiar, and Jon’s shoulders slowly relaxed as Martin pushed him lightly inside the building. His own mind was racing with a billion thoughts, the biggest of them being _Jonathan Sims is going to set foot into my flat,_ followed closely by _oh my god I didn’t clean the dishes_ and _fuck fuck fuck do I have anything_ _to_ _eat that’s good enough_ _—_

Before he knew it, he was opening his door wide, feeling incredibly self-conscious. It wasn’t as if he exactly had _guests_ in here. Tim had come once, he remembered. They’d had a nice time, though Tim had been a bit moody, and Martin all too aware this was only happening because Sasha had a date and she and Tim couldn’t do their usual drinks-and-movie Friday evening. 

“It’s not much,” he said, voice a bit too high. “Obviously I didn’t expect anyone so, er, it might not be exactly —”

“It’s fine, Martin,” Jon cut him off.

His eyes were roaming the small living-room and kitchenette with a curiosity that was almost hungry. The back of Martin's hair rose as if he was the one being watched and scrutinized, and he stood there for a minute, almost frozen, before shaking the feeling off and forcing himself to take off his jacket.

“Right,” he declared, too loud this time. “Tea?”

“... I thought we were going to eat,” Jon said. 

“No reason we can’t do _both,_ ” Martin said, flustered. “I, uh, I must have pasta somewhere and — why are you — ” Jon’s lips were twitching, he wasn’t dreaming it. God’s sake. _“_ Are you _teasing me?_ ”

“I’ve been told it’s a thing friends do,” Jon said lightly, though the amused expression on his face deflated as Martin just gaped at him. “I, I mean — not that you ought to — I realize given that I’m your superior you’re under no obligation to, to consider us friends or —”

“Oh shut it,” Martin interrupted him. Was that it? he thought, fighting not to give in to the sudden urge to go and hug Jon, or maybe laugh, or maybe cry; was the sudden knot in his stomach the infamous butterflies he’d heard so much about before? The ones he’d carefully try to grow over the years, invented to the point he’d thought several times before he could feel them? “We’re friends,” he said, out loud, and couldn’t remember to be embarrassed about his own giddiness when Jon’s fragile, tentative smile blossomed fully on his lips.

_I want to kiss you,_ Martin thought; or perhaps it was bigger than that, but he didn’t know how to express it, even silently; _I want you to stay here and tease me and look at me just like that and I promise I’ll take care of you, always, I love you, I love you, I love_ you —

“I can cook, if you want,” Jon suggested. “It’s only fair, since I’m imposing.”

“You’re not imposing, I’ve invited you,” Martin protested. “And of course you’re not cooking, you’re my guest! Just. Just sit down on the couch, okay?” 

“...If you insist..”

“I do! I do insist.”

“Well, then.”

Martin kept staring at him pointedly until Jon was sitting primly on his ratty, second-hand couch, hands on his lap like he didn’t quite know what to do with them. Then he turned back to his kitchenette and grinned, wide with disbelief, and filled the kettle with water. It turned out he did have pasta in his cupboards, which was quite a relief, and he set to prepare it as well, hoping Jon wasn’t observant enough to realize he really didn’t do this much. You couldn’t really have the higher ground on feeding habits, after all, if you showed just how bad you were at it yourself. 

Through it all Jon stayed silent, though he never once stopped staring at him; Martin wondered if he was making sure Martin wasn’t poisoning the food, or something. The fact that it was highly plausible dimmed his enthusiasm a little bit. Jon had said they were friends, though. You trusted friends not to kill you, did you?

_He was closer to Tim and Sasha, and looked at what he’s been doing,_ the depreciative, unsure voice in his mind whispered. 

But then again, Martin stubbornly counteracted himself, stirring the pasta vigorously, he hadn’t been eating subpar food at Tim’s or Sasha’s lately either. _Who else would I go to?_ Jon had said, like it was obvious, that he would go to Martin first. 

God, Martin needed to stop grinning like a fool. 

“So,” he asked. “Do you have any… week-end plans?”

“I haven’t had the time to properly focus on the statement from Michigan,” said Jon. “I was hoping to reach the Usher Foundation, if only so that it may be transferred to them if they wish to follow it through --”

“Oh, come on,” Martin said, turning back to carefully put the tea on the small table in front of Jon. “Michigan will still be here on Monday, you know.”

“A bold prediction,” Jon said dryly. 

“Besides, it’s not a — y’know.” _Not a real one,_ he wanted to say, but Jon was so cagey about the statements that didn’t record on the computer. He’d taken to hoarding the tape recorders almost jealously, these days, and speaking of them had become a little bit awkward. 

Jon stiffened like he understood perfectly what Martin was trying to imply. “I find those are the most relaxing,” he admitted, with a hint of reluctance in his voice. “There is less… pressure in dealing with them.”

“I’m pretty sure it definitely doesn’t count as a week-end activity _anyway,_ though.”

“Well what are _you_ going to do?” Jon asked defensively. 

Martin glanced at the pasta, scratching idly at his knee. “I dunno,” he said. “Er, writing, maybe? Watch some TV shows.”

“Sounds thrilling.”

“Better than _Michigan_ _—_ ”

“So you say. Personally I find the statement giver had a lot of imagination in this one.”

Martin couldn’t help it. He snorted. Then, because the evening was already a little bit magical, and because he couldn’t seem to fully control himself anymore, he said impulsively: “We could do something together.” 

Jon stared, taken aback. The back of Martin’s neck warmed up furiously.

“I — I mean — clearly, clearly we’re not doing anything too — I just thought— you said — we could —”

“Okay,” said Jon and then looked down quickly at his cup of tea. “If you wish.”

“...Okay,” Martin repeated, weakly. 

This time, it was harder to focus on the pasta. He felt almost light-headed, his mind hopefully feeding him scenario upon scenario of what he and Jon could do, and what he could say, and where this could lead them. By the time he handed Jon a bowl of overcooked pasta, he was already planning how he was going to ask this man's hand in marriage.

Their fingers brushed against each other, and they both startled. 

“Thank you, Martin,” Jon said. His voice was so soft; it sent a gentle shiver down Martin’s spine. 

“Anytime,” Martin replied. _Forever,_ he thought. _I want this forever._

When he sat down, Jon slowly moved closer until their legs touched, and added nothing more; he didn’t need to. Right then, Martin was pretty sure they understood each other perfectly.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> "canon-compliant" but i mean we can also imagine they go on a first date, and then several more, and nothing bad happens to them again and they just heal and kiss and get married --


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